Last-Minute Escape

The Crimson icemen have two things for which to be thankful for this morning. One, they escaped from the Boston Arena with a three-goals-in-the-last-three-minutes, 4-2 triumph over Northeastern, and two, they escaped, period.

Rumor had it that the Arena was no place to stage hockey games, but the rumor was wrong, because the Arena is no place to have anything with the exception of reunion parties for the Addams (as in Mortisha and Lerch) family.

In a word, it's the pits, which also happens to describe what the Crimson must have felt like for the first 57 minutes of the hockey game. But Harvard recovered in time. The Arena, however, is beyond the point of recovery.

Basically, the whole place needs a good bath. The ice surface resembles the face of the guy in the commercial who didn't use Trac II--it has a great many cuts, nicks and scratches, the kind of surface upon which it is impossible to learn to skate. Gotcha!

But really, you ask, how bad is the ice surface? Why it's so bad that despite the gallant efforts of the zamboni man, who circled the arena enough times prior to the opening face-off to make a grown man nauseous, the ice still remained the color of clothes that aren't washed with Borax--in front of one net, there was a shotput circle, to the right of the other, the landing area for a long jump.

There were cobwebs hanging from the light standards, and grafitti was written all over the place (Rich, Ann-Marie, Rocco R.) The ancient overhead scoreboard looked like it had come right out of a Reynolds Wrap commercial, and the walls were being eaten alive. Had Herman Munster been a hockey player, he would have loved it.

Even the press box, that most sacred of all places, was peeling. Actually, it had recently been covered with a fresh coat of blue paint, but there were no signs warning anybody, and if you hadn't already noticed, blue paint and gold corduroys just don't make it. You feel like the pen in your left pocket has just leaked, and this time, it wasn't even your fault.

How Northeastern manages to recruit more than zero players to perform in the Arena for four years is incomprehensible. It's a ghastly place, where a rape could occur and no one would probably notice.

By the way, are you sure there are no such things as goblins?

Twenty seconds later, Murray Dea rolled the disc into an unoccupied net after taking lead passes from Hughes and captain Bill Horton, and Northeastern coach Fernie Flaman began to think up ways to explain this one.

The Crimson comeback, leaving the club 2-0 on the season and dropping N.U. to 1-1, took the shine out of Bowman's 30-save effort after his game-long acrobatics kept the scrappy Huskies in front of the erratic Crimson. The senior netminder was not beaten until 3:37 of the second period, when Harvard's Bill Hozack cut Northeastern's 2-0 lead in half.

Calculators

With Huskie Mark Simmons sitting in the penalty box serving time for interference Harvard went to work on Bowman with a calculated if somewhat unexciting power play which finally registered just as Simmons stepped back on the ice.

Hozack took a pass from Gene Purdy 20 feet in front of the Northeastern goal and zipped a wrist shot past Bowman's outstretched glove--the senior's first goal of the season. John Cochrane also picked up an assist on the play, setting up Purdy for the critical pass.

Less than a minute later, Northeastern's Mike McMillen trotted into the penalty box, followed soon thereafter by teammate Mike Holmes. Some sharp saves by Bowman and sloppy passing by the Crimson teamed up to wipe out the two man advantage, however, and the Huskies maintained their 2-1 lead until the third period barrage did them in.

Bottom Line

On the other side of the ledger, Crimson goaltender Brian Petrovek turned in his second straight good game, stopping 17 shots after giving up two first period scores.

Mark Simmons picked up both of them for Northeastern, the first coming on a rebound at 9:24 and the second in similar fashion at 12:18. Petrovek and his defense steadied after that, and the former All-American was not severly tested again until the third period, when a series of penalties left the Crimson shorthanded for six of the first twelve minutes.

The Huskies, however, were too busy protecting their lead to worry about scoring late in the game, though Simmons and Mark Coates did manage to break free for good shots which were handled by Petrovek.